India is a land of many languages and many more dialects. It is said that every 15-20 kilometres, the language changes in terms of communicative styles. While traditionally Hindi content has been popular, South Indian cinema has gradually established itself as a major competitor of Bollywood. However, South Indian cinema’s shot to prominence and Bollywood’s dominance have pushed other regional entertainment outlets on the back burner. “Language content (excluding Hindi and south content) is important for the growth of entertainment in India. Already, language films comprise around a quarter of all films released in India and are approaching that number on television and OTT. Consumption of language music, too, is growing faster than larger genres. We expect this trend to continue, and this will enrich audiences with India’s diverse culture,” Ashish Pherwani, leader-media and entertainment, EY, told BrandWagon Online.
As per a FICCI-EY report, 2022 witnessed approximately nine percent more film releases as compared to 2019. However, except English and Hindi, all other languages had more releases as compared to pre-pandemic levels. 106 Bangla films were released in 2022 as compared to 102 in 2019. Similarly, 64 Punjabi films were released in 2022 as compared to 55 in 2019 and 76 Gujarati films were released in 2022 as compared to 40 in 2019. ““It is totally about demand and supply. For instance, today a lot of K drama besides other languages such as Assamese content is also watched on OTT platforms because the youth has migrated to other cities to either study or work. And OTT has helped in bridging the geographical gap between content and viewers,” Nitin Goswami, national head, GroupM Motion Entertainment, said.
Movies and the box-office
Movies have been one of the most important sources of entertainment in India. Despite an increase in the number of releases in different languages, the box office collections remain low, much so post the pandemic. Gross box office collections for other languages apart from Hindi and the South stood at Rs 400 crore, according to the FICCI-EY report. However, gross box office collections for language films stood at Rs 1,000 crore in 2018, signifying a 60% decline. However, industry experts have a different tale to tell.“The sentiment around these vernacular language films is quite positive, it is not diminishing or stagnant. During the Durga Pooja, there were a couple of films that did quite well in Bangla. Carry on Jatta 3 did well last year and so did Gujarati films. After a premiere window theatrical, producers have another lifeline with the content being available on OTT as it gives them another chance to recover certain investments, not only from the box office but other allied rights,” Girish Johar, film business analyst and producer, highlighted.
According to a report by Ormax Media, only a handful of language films made it to its monthly top 10 releases, based on gross domestic box office collections. The likes of Jhimma 2 (Rs 14 crore), Subhedar (Rs 19 crore), 3 Ekka (Rs 37 crore), Mastaney (Rs 40 crore), and Jodi (Rs 14 crore) among others featured on the list. However, South Indian cinema and Bollywood remained dominant as they earned more than regional language movies. South Indian cinema dominated the top 10 list by Ormax with 40% of movies from the list being either Tamil, Telugu, Kannada or Malayalam films. “Regional movies, in the case of Punjabi films, have not been doing well for the past one and a half years due to two broad reasons. One is the South Indian cinemas being dubbed and consumed avidly and the other is revised remunerations for actors and disengaging audiences because Punjabi movies had started doing well not very long ago and remunerations happened. Bollywood, Hollywood and South Indian cinemas have been dominating for the past year or so owing to which regional movies have failed to make a dent in the earnings of these industries,” Rohit Jugraj, filmmaker, director, writer and producer, said.
The language share of gross domestic box office in 2023 from January to November is dominated by the South Indian film industry. While Hindi boasts a share of 41%, the share of Tamil (18%), Telugu (18%), Malayalam (5%) and Kannada (2%) boast a higher total of 43%. Additionally, other languages constitute five percent of the total language share, according to an Ormax report.
According to industry estimates, the cost of production of a Punjabi movie ranges between Rs 5-7 crore while the cost of production of a Bangla movie would range between Rs 3-4 crore.
Taking the TV route
Thanks to the pandemic, digital streaming platforms managed to find a space in the life viewers. Over-the-top (OTT) streaming platforms including the likes of Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, Disney+ Hotstar and JioCinema have grown into prominence. According to the FICCI-EY report, the share of vernacular content will increase to over 62% of total content produced as regional OTTs achieve scale on the back of dubbing and subtitling. “Regional OTT platforms capitalised on the demand by offering a wide array of content in various languages, catering to the linguistic and cultural diversity of India. One key aspect that sets regional OTT platforms apart from their Hindi counterparts is their focus on providing content that resonates with specific linguistic and cultural demographics. By producing content that reflects the local ethos and traditions, regional OTTs have managed to forge a deeper connection with audiences. The strategy has not only attracted viewers in tier-2 and 3 cities but has also garnered attention from urban audiences who appreciate the authenticity and storytelling richness of regional content,” Soumya Mukherjee, COO, hoichoi, highlighted.
As per the FICCI-EY report, several subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) regional OTT platforms are now following a new-release-each-week formula. Rural areas have been a major target audience for the regional OTT platforms due to the large concentration of population. Mainstream OTT platforms including Netflix and Prime Video have added regional content to its library to capitalise on regional content viewership. Moreover, digital video subscriptions grew 27% in 2022 to Rs 68,500 crore while the market is expected to grow to Rs 91,200 crore by 2025. Furthermore, paid video subscriptions reached 99 million households in 2022 across almost 45 million households in India, with a total viewership of approximately 135-180 million users. “Regional OTTs have eaten into the pie of Hindi entertainment. Regional OTTs incorporate rural regional stars so the access to the masses is direct. The core of the content needs to be kept rural,” Jugraj, added.
Industry experts opine that OTT viewing witnessed a change in viewing patterns. Watching a web series has now become a family affair. Moreover, half the original content produced was in Hindi in 2022 which has come down from 70% to 50% in 2022, signalling a shift towards regional language audiences. Foreign languages and dubbed content are also garnering interest in the Indian market. “The initial post-pandemic period was great for regional content, but later it has come to its usual, I don’t think there is a big impact of regional anymore, while it has been noticed and talked about, foreign language content and dubbed content in regional content are doing better than the original ones. Korean shows are popular. Every OTT platform now is looking to make adult-ish content, driving subscriptions,” Akshay Bardapurkar, founder, Planet Marathi OTT, explained.
The revenue in the video streaming (SVoD) segment is projected to reach Rs 14019.9 crore by 2023, according to market intelligence platform, Statista. Moreover, the Indian OTT market reported 45.7 crore unique visitors on OTT platforms in India in 2022. Currently, regional OTT platforms follow a range of revenue models ranging from an advertising-based model to paid to freemium – where some pieces of content are behind the paywall. “A platform like Hoichoi’s core audience is subscription which accounts for 70%, while indirect subscription through partner platforms accounts for 20% while advertising video-on-demand (AVoD) accounts for 10% of the audience base,” Chatterjee, added. Furthermore, platforms such as Hoichoi have also inked placement deals with larger players such as Amazon Prime Video.
Experts believe that the understanding quotient of Hindi is big in India. Regional content caters to more geographies and emotions of consumers, with people watching the shows on regional OTTs with subtitles due to the likeability of the content and storyline. Moreover, most OTTs are backed by television networks, making original content on Hindi OTT platforms hard to come by. Regional OTTs, in that regard, have an upper hand due to the availability of more exclusive content on the platforms.
The roadmap….
The regional market is expected to be big as most big platforms have adopted a strategy of including eight languages, namely Hindi, four Southern languages, Bangla, Marathi, and English) or more. Industry experts highlighted that dubbing and subtitles have become an essential part of this journey, thereby bringing content into the mainstream as remakes could be expensive. According to Mukherjee, dubbing hoichoi’s content in South languages is on the cards to reach maximum audiences. Additionally, experts believe that regional language platforms will continue to expand in terms of size and reach. AVOD content is expected to rise while bold content is also expected to make a gradual rise. Syndication of content is expected to increase as partnerships and bundlings of telcos and OTT platforms continue to be rampant.